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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)7.1 knocks with a public Beta!

Posted on December 15, 2014

One step up for Red Hat‘s frontrunner RHEL7 Platform – RHEL 7.1 Beta.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the most significant Enterprise Linux distribution, releases the Beta availability for the upcoming 7.1 version.The Beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1, delivers a number of enhancements and improvements to the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, with a strong emphasis on ease-of-use, improved manageability, security, and performance.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 beta introduces support for POWER 8 on IBM Power Systems hardware architecture(the first RHEL version to do so) and gives customers even more choice on application deployment platforms.The other major benefits of RHEL 7.1 version includes security and performance capabilities that has been developed in the open source community.

As part of the Identity Management system, RHEL 7.1 beta includes a new security certificate authority (CA), through the Dogtag Certificate System. Let us recall that the Dogtag Certificate system is an open-source project that got started in Red Hat‘s Fedora Linux community. The Certificate authority tool introduced by Beta version makes it easy for customers using IDM to change the CA certificate as well.

What more with the Beta, is an improved two-factor authentication capability system. In this approach a second password is been required by the user in addition to the primary password, to gain access.Typically a One Time Password(OTP) is needed to permit the second factor.The ability to provide strong One time password authentication could be considered to be one of the the best features of RHEL 7.1 beta. Additionally, the Security Content Automation Protocol will come with a SCAP guide that delivers security guidance, baselines and associated validation techniques.

RHEL 7.1 will have extraordinary performance management features and capabilities, like tuned and performance profiles.To improve the processor efficiency for large systems, new locking mechanisms are also implemented. Furthermore, RHEL 7.1 also provides access to new real time technology which means provisioning enterprises with a real time kernel option that provides a deterministic response to system events.

That’s just based on an initial research, but I am sure there is more in store. Let’s anticipate the best!